State Agrees Hearing Needed On Potential New Evidence In Cheshire Case

State prosecutors have acknowledged in a court filing that a hearing is needed to determine if newly discovered Cheshire police recordings from the morning of the 2007 Petit family murders were not disclosed to the defense and could have provided new evidence at trial.

In an eight-page filing to the state Supreme Court, prosecutors agreed with a defense request that a hearing be held in Superior Court to determine whether convicted killer Joshua Komisarjevsky's defense was prejudiced because some phone calls between officers were not turned over to his attorneys before his trial.

Komisarjevsky and Steven Hayes were convicted by separate juries for the triple murders of Jennifer Petit and her daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11. Both men are on death row, appealing their convictions.

Last month, Komisarjevsky's attorneys, John Holdridge and Moira Buckley, filed a motion with the state Supreme Court seeking a hearing to determine why more than 40 taped police calls were not turned over to the defense.

The hearing was needed, they argued, to rectify the original court record and to argue that Komisarjevsky's conviction be overturned and he be granted a new trial on the ground that his rights were violated.

CAPTION

Alarm Company ADT calls the Cheshire Dispatch to inform them there is fire at the Petit household, the day of the triple murder.

Alarm Company ADT calls the Cheshire Dispatch to inform them there is fire at the Petit household, the day of the triple murder.

CAPTION

A fire department hostage
negotiator told he
is not needed
¿at this time.¿

A fire department hostage negotiator told he is not needed ¿at this time.¿

Senior Assistant State's Attorney Marjorie Allen Dauster indicated in her motion that the state will argue that a new trial is not necessary, but agreed a hearing is needed.

"Although the state will challenge the defendant's assertion that the phone call evidence is favorable and/or material, circumstances have come to light that bear on whether the state disclosed evidence in its possession," Dauster wrote.

Dauster was referring to the discovery in late July by a Cheshire town employee of a locked cabinet labeled "police department offsite storage." When police opened the cabinet they found stacks of compact discs, including some dated July 23, 2007, the date of the slayings.

The copies were submitted to the state police Forensic Science Laboratory for analysis, which is continuing, Dauster said. The discs are believed to be backups.

Dauster wrote that at least one phone call between two officers shortly after the 911 call came in that was not turned over to the defense has been located on the recently discovered recordings. She did not reveal what that call contained in court documents.

The existence of 41 taped calls from three internal Cheshire police lines was first revealed by The Courant in July 2013.

Some of the calls showed that police told SWAT team members not to report, informed one of the department's hostage negotiators not to go to the scene and initially appeared to have doubted the veracity of Jennifer Petit's statement to a bank employee that her family was being held.

Komisarjevsky's attorneys have said that some of those 41 calls were never turned over to the defense. Prosecutors had insisted the calls were turned over.